Bachelor

For other uses, see Bachelor (disambiguation).
For the U.S. television show, see The Bachelor (U.S. TV series).

A bachelor is a man who is neither married nor cohabitating and who lives independently outside of his parents' home or other institutional setting.[1]

Origin and medieval usage

The word is from Anglo-Norman bacheler (later suffixal change to bachelier; cf. escolier "student", from earlier escoler), a young squire in training. The ultimate source of the word is uncertain, it may be from Medieval Latin baccalari(u)s "vassal farmer" or "farm hand" (cf. Provençal bacalar, Tuscan bacalaro "squire"), i.e. one who tends a baccalaria, a term for a grazing farm (from bacca "cow"),[2] or it may be from Latin baculum "a stick" (as the knight-in-training would practice with a wooden club before receiving his sword).[3]

The Old French term crossed into English around 1300, referring to one belonging to the lowest stage of knighthood. Knights bachelor were either poor vassals who could not afford to take the field under their own banner, or knights too young to support the responsibility and dignity of knights banneret.

From the 14th century, the term was also used for a junior member of a guild (otherwise known as "yeomen") or university; hence, an ecclesiastic of an inferior grade, for example, a young monk or even recently appointed canon;[4] and also an inferior grade in scholarship, i.e. one holding a "bachelor's degree" In this sense the word baccalarius or baccalaureus first appears at the University of Paris in the 13th century, in the system of degrees established under the auspices of Pope Gregory IX, as applied to scholars still in statu pupillari. Thus there were two classes of baccalarii: the baccalarii cursores, theological candidates passed for admission to the divinity course; and the baccalarii dispositi, who, having completed this course, were entitled to proceed to the higher degrees.

Use for "unmarried man" in the 19th and 20th centuries

Further information: spinster and nubile

In the Victorian era, the term eligible bachelor was used in the context of upper class matchmaking, denoting a young man who was not only unmarried and eligible for marriage, but also considered "eligible" in financial and societal terms for the prospective bride under discussion. Also in the Victorian era, the term "confirmed bachelor" connoted a man who was resolute to remain unmarried. Up until the 1960s (especially in the U.K.), the phrase "confirmed bachelor" was employed as a polite euphemism to describe a gay man (or, a man thought to be gay).[5]

By the later 19th century, the term "bachelor" had acquired the general sense of "unmarried man". The expression bachelor party is recorded 1882. In 1895, a feminine equivalent "bachelor-girl" was coined, replaced in US English by the somewhat humorous "bachelorette" by the mid-1930s. After World War II, this terminology came to be seen as antiquated, and has been mostly replaced by the gender-neutral term "single" (first recorded 1964). In England and Wales, the term "bachelor" remained the official term used for the purpose of marriage registration until 2005, when it was abolished in favour of "single."[6]

In certain Gulf Arab countries, "bachelor" can refer to men who are single as well as immigrant men married to a spouse residing in their country of origin (due to the high added cost of sponsoring a spouse onsite),[7] and a colloquial term "executive bachelor" is also used in rental and sharing accommodation advertisements to indicate availability to white-collar bachelors in particular.[8]

Historical examples of bachelors (men who never married)

(chronologically, by date of birth)

    Ancient Period     Medieval Period, Renaissance, and Early Enlightenment Late Enlightenment, Modern, and Post-modern
Jeremiah[9] Aquinas Vivaldi
HeraclitusPetrarch[10] Handel[11]
Gorgias[12]da Vinci[13] Pope[14]
Democritus[15] Erasmus[16] Voltaire[17]
Plato[18] Copernicus[19] Bayes[20]
Epicurus[21] Raphael[22] Hume[23]
Horace[24] Gilbert[25] d'Alembert[26]
Jesus[27] Brahe[28] Smith[29]
Epictetus[30] Galileo[31] Kant[32]
Plotinus[33] Hobbes[34] Gibbon[35]
Augustine[36]  Descartes[37] Fourier[38]
  Pascal[39] Beethoven[40]
  Boyle[41] Lewis[42]
  Huygens[43] Schopenhauer[44]
  Locke[45] Schubert[46]
  Spinoza[47] Chopin[48]
  Hooke[49] Liszt[50]
  Newton[51] Kierkegaard[52]
  Leibniz[53] Thoreau[54]
    Bayle[55] Spencer[56]
    Brahms[57]
    Nobel[58]
    Degas[59]
    James[60]
    Van Gogh[61]
    Nietzsche[62]
    Tesla[63]
    Wright[64]
    Kafka[65]
    Sartre[66]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating" Pitt, Richard and Elizabeth Borland. 2008. "Bachelorhood and Men's Attitudes about Gender Roles" The Journal of Men's Studies 16:140–158
  2. ↑ Middle Latin meanings: Du Cange (1733), 906–912.
  3. ↑ etymological discussion, with references: Uwe Friedrich Schmidt, Praeromanica Der Italoromania Auf Der Grundlage Des LEI (A und B), Europäische Hochschulschriften 49, 9: Italienische Sprache und Literatur, Peter Lang, 2009, 117–120.
  4. ↑ Severtius, de episcopis Lugdunen-sibus, p. 377, in du Cange.
  5. ↑ "Arnold Zwicky's Blog". Retrieved 2015-05-12. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  6. ↑ "R.I.P Bachelors and Spinsters". BBC. 14 September 2005. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  7. ↑ http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/hundreds-of-bachelors-crammed-in-squalid-and-dilapidated-buildings-1.194725
  8. ↑ http://www.google.com/search?q=executive-bachelor
  9. ↑ Willis, Timothy M. Jeremiah – Lamentations (The College Press NIV Commentary) (College Press Publishing Co., 2002), 122.
  10. ↑ Targoff, Ramie. Posthumous Love: Eros and the Afterlife in Renaissance England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 59.
  11. ↑ Schoelcher, Victor. The Life of Handel, Vol. II (London: Robert Cocks & Co., 1857), 380.
  12. ↑ Guthrie, W. K. C. A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 36.
  13. ↑ Thomas, Joseph, M.D. Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, Vol. II (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1908), 2396.
  14. ↑ Skinner, Hubert Marshall. The Schoolmaster in Comedy and Satire (New York: American Book Company, 1894), 129.
  15. ↑ Leigh, Aston. The Story of Philosophy (London: Trubner & Co., 1881), 31.
  16. ↑ Harris, Virgil McClure. Ancient, Curious and Famous Wills (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911), 120.
  17. ↑ Davidson, Ian. Voltaire in Exile (London: Atlantic Books, 2004), 14.
  18. ↑ Cates, William Leist Readwin. A Dictionary of General Biography (London: Spottiswoode and Co., 1875), 890.
  19. ↑ Becker, Thomas W. Eight Against the World: Warriors of the Scientific Revolution (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2007), 17.
  20. ↑ McElroy, Tucker, Ph.D. A to Z of Mathematicians (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2005), 25.
  21. ↑ Frischer, Bernard. The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 63.
  22. ↑ Parry, Emma Louise. The Two Great Art Epochs (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1914), 210.
  23. ↑ Phillipson, Nicholas. David Hume: The Philosopher as Historian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 12.
  24. ↑ Hazel, John. Who's Who in the Roman World (London: Routledge, 2001), 140.
  25. ↑ Timmons, Todd. Makers of Western Science (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012), 52.
  26. ↑ Anderson, John D. A History of Aerodynamics and Its Impact on Flying Machines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 44.
  27. ↑ Rogers, Arthur Kenyon. The Life and Teachings of Jesus (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1894), 270.
  28. ↑ Becker, Thomas W. Eight Against the World: Warriors of the Scientific Revolution (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2007), 17.
  29. ↑ Rae, John. Life of Adam Smith (London: Macmillan & Co., 1895), 213.
  30. ↑ Lucian, Demoxan, c. 55, torn, ii., Hemsterh (Editor), p. 393, as quoted in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion (2009), p. 6.
  31. ↑ Allan-Olney, Mary. The Private Life of Galileo (Boston: Nichols and Noyes, 1870), 75.
  32. ↑ Paulsen, Friedrich. Immanuel Kant, His Life and Doctrine (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902), 26.
  33. ↑ Smith, William, D.C.L., LL.D. (Editor). A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines (London: John Murray, 1887), 485.
  34. ↑ Malcolm, Noel (Editor). The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes, Vol. I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 191.
  35. ↑ Hubbard, Elbert. Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous Women (New York: William H. Wise & Co., 1916), 165.
  36. ↑ Green, Bradley G. (Editor). Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 236.
  37. ↑ Williams, Henry Smith. The Historians' History of the World, Vol. XI (London: Kooper and Jackson, Ltd., 1909), 638.
  38. ↑ Hawking, Stephen (Editor). God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History (Philadelphia: Running Press Book Publishers, 2007), 526.
  39. ↑ Cook, Terrence E. The Great Alternatives of Social Thought: Aristocrat, Saint, Capitalist, Socialist (Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1991), 97.
  40. ↑ Rudall, H.A. Beethoven (London: Sampson, Low, Marston and Company, 1903), 28.
  41. ↑ Owen, William (Editor). A New and General Biographical Dictionary, Volume II (London: W. Strahan, 1784), 371.
  42. ↑ Sterling, Keir B. Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), 465.
  43. ↑ Bos, Henk J. M. Lectures in the History of Mathematics (American Mathematical Society, 1993), 63.
  44. ↑ Bebel, August. Woman in the Past, Present and Future (San Francisco: International Publishing Co., 1897), 58.
  45. ↑ Bancroft, George. History of the United States of America, Vol. I (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1916), 561.
  46. ↑ von Hellborn, Dr. Heinrich Kreissle. Franz Schubert: A Musical Biography [abridged], trans. by Edward Wilberforce (London: William H. Allen & Co., 1866), 64.
  47. ↑ Francks, Richard. Modern Philosophy: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Routledge, 2003), 59.
  48. ↑ Szulc, Tad. Chopin in Paris: The Life and Times of the Romantic Composer (Da Capo Press, 2000), 61.
  49. ↑ Lasater, A. Brian. The Dream of the West, Part II: The Ancient Heritage and the European Achievement in Map-Making, Navigation and Science, 1487-1727 (Morrisville, NC: Lulu Enterprises, Inc., 2007), 509.
  50. ↑ Tibbetts, John C. Schumann – A Chorus of Voices (Amadeus Press, 2010), 146.
  51. ↑ Thomas, Joseph, M.D. Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, Vol. II (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1908), 1814.
  52. ↑ Buber, Martin. "The Question to the Single One," from Søren Kierkegaard: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, edited by Daniel W. Conway (London: Routledge, 2002), 45.
  53. ↑ Kidder, David S. The Intellectual Devotional Biographies: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Acquaint Yourself with the World's Greatest Personalities (New York: Rodale, Inc., 2010), 6.
  54. ↑ Mabie, Hamilton Wright. Noble Living and Grand Achievement: Giants of the Republic (Philadelphia: John C. Winston & Co., 1896), 665.
  55. ↑ Sandberg, Karl C. At the Crossroads of Faith and Reason: An Essay on Pierre Bayle (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1966), vii.
  56. ↑ Hudson, William Henry. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer (London: Watts & Co., 1904), 23.
  57. ↑ Hubbard, William Lines (Editor), American History and Encyclopedia of Music, Musical Biographies, Vol. 1 (New York: Irving Squire, 1910), 97.
  58. ↑ Joesten, Castellion, and Hogg. The World of Chemistry: Essentials, 4th Ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2007), 25.
  59. ↑ Growe, Bernd. Degas (Cologne: Taschen GmbH, 2001), 35.
  60. ↑ Crumbley, Paul. Student's Encyclopedia of Great American Writers, Vol. II, 1830–1900 (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2010), 305.
  61. ↑ Heinich, Nathalie. The Glory of Van Gogh: An Anthropology of Admiration, trans. by Paul Leduc Brown (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 85.
  62. ↑ Salter, William Mackintire. Nietzsche the Thinker: A Study (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1917), 7.
  63. ↑ Cheney, Margaret. Tesla: Master of Lightning (Metrobooks/Barnes & Noble, 1999), preface p. vi.
  64. ↑ Crouch, Tom D. The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (W. W. Norton & Company, 2003)
  65. ↑ Burt, Daniel S. The Literary 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time, Revised Edition (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2009), 116.
  66. ↑ Danto, Arthur Coleman. Jean-Paul Sartre (Minneapolis: Viking Press, 1975), 166.

External links

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